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concealment writes "A Senate proposal touted as protecting Americans' e-mail privacy has been quietly rewritten, giving government agencies more surveillance power than they possess under current law. [Sen. Patrick] Leahy's rewritten bill would allow more than 22 agencies — including the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Communications Commission — to access Americans' e-mail, Google Docs files, Facebook wall posts, and Twitter direct messages without a search warrant. It also would give the FBI and Homeland Security more authority, in some circumstances, to gain full access to Internet accounts without notifying either the owner or a judge."

Your glee is... misplaced. Since the paranoid responses to September 11 over a decade ago, both sides of the aisle can hang their heads in shame. The elected officials of both parties have pushed the power of government to interfere with our personal liberties on the promise of "keeping us safe". It's bullshit, of course, but to suggest that it is being shoveled by one party more than another is to ignore plain facts.

That generation (generalizing Big time) - both Dems and Reps - have a completely different view of America. They were the kids who were alive during WWII and saw everyone working together to defeat evil. The government was Good. The government fought for freedom.

To them, we are the source of Good, Truth, Justice, and that we can do no wrong. They lived during the US' best economic times, they saw the US become a World power and pretty much lead the World.

My 20 something daughter and her grandparents talk as if they come from two different countries. It's really entertaining. I look forward to Thanksgiving.

Seriously, what does the 4th Amendment in particular, or the Constitution in general, even apply to anymore? The government can subvert every single protection afforded in the Constitution simply by saying "It's a national security matter" (or even "It's a law enforcement matter") and every court in the country will simply turn its head and ignore it.

Let's call this what it is, high treason. The president, members of congress, and judges all swear an oath of office to defend the Constitution, not render it asunder.

"I, (name), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter...."

And in my country the police (or anybody else) aren't allowed to routinely intercept my post without a warrant (and otherwise it has to be random discovery, i.e. the post office spot a suspicious package or trail of packages and inform the police, etc.).

So even if your analogy were perfect, it's got little to do with the warrantless tracking.

That said, even if you encrypt the postcard, there's nothing to say that the guy the other end isn't forced to give a decrypted version to his local law enforcement or face jail-time anyway. Which is, again, strangely true to the analogous email storage too.

The problem here is NOT message security. The problem here is law enforcement being able to do these things with no tracking, no permissions, no way to tell if they are deliberately targeting innocents (e.g. fishing expeditions), no way to tell if they are intercepting their old girlfriend's post, etc. because of the desire to remove JUDICIAL OVERSIGHT. Nobody cares that X sent an email that was used to prosecute him.

We *do* care that person in department *Y* has routine, unauthorised, complete access to things we do with no judicial oversight and could be using them to snoop on your girlfriend, or see if his hunch was right about your sexual habits. And THAT is none of their business, and why we have judicial oversight in the form of having to ask for warrants that are limited in scope (i.e. you can't just ask for a warrant to "always" do this "for ever").

I'm an ex-pat who's lived outside the U.S. for twenty years (this year). It's been fascinating to watch the transformation of America from a distance over the past decade.

America transformed into a snooping society well over a decade ago. Did you not read the European Parliament's ECHELON investigation in 2001 (a sensation sadly forgotten after the infinitely bigger press sensation of September 11th)? All that infrastructure was in place in the 1990s, and it was President Clinton who favoured intercepting foreign business correspondence in order to "level the playing field".

Did you not read the European Parliament's ECHELON investigation in 2001

That was a secret thing because it was illegal. If your snooping powers are illegal, you'll do it anyway when it's really really important. There's always the risk of getting caught or bad PR or losing your job etc. But once you enshrine the snooping in law and sidestep constitutional protections, it become ripe for abuse. So yes, it has always been going on but they're now trying to take it to another level.

- you can be stopped, searched, and seized with no suspicion or warrant- try using your right to bear arms in NYC- granted, they're not quartering troops in our homes....but there is no need to.- guess, we still have the right to gripe...for now

I'd argue that republican vs democrat is missing the underlying cause. The parties aren't conspiring to erode our privacy or liberties. The voters have indicated they're willing to trade those away for a sense of security. The parties are selling the voters what they want.

Access to my tweets without a warrant is not a fight I need to have. I spew these out to my supposedly private followers, and it would be trivial for the government to sneak into my list with a handle as unimaginiative as bigbrother or watchingyou or even mintruth. Privacy on Twitter is not an illusion, it is nonexistent.

Access to my Facebook wall, if I designate it as for friends only, I think is improper. No, this I need to fight.

Reading my email without a warrant? Time to consider that email is replacing snail mail so well that the USPS is going under, just slower than Hostess. If the government needs a warrant to open an envelope and read my paper mail, they should need a warrant to do the same to my email.

And the electronic nature of email does not change the fact that I have as much an expectation of privacy as with paper mail. Think it over. Someone can, for most of us, reach into your mailbox and take out an envelope, steam it open, Polaroid the contents, and put it back. The medium does not change the act, merely the process. We need to re-establish the Fourth and Fifth Amendments, among others. This finally gets me to open up my phone and email my representatives today. We may have to have the revolution after all.

Secure in our papers and effects. When written, this included all private communications. Simply because we use electrons instead of ink and paper doesn't mean we lose the protection of the 4th amendment.

Stop whining on Slashdot for a few minutes and write your Senator and Congressman.

Last time I wrote my senator (Dan Coats) it was to express my disapproval in what he was doing and how he was acting on the Senate Intelligence Committee.

I got a letter back in the mail, which started out "Thank you for your letter supporting me in my disapproval of how the Obama administration is handling the Bengazi incident. As you may or may not be aware, I sit on the Senate Intelligence Committee..."

You can write, call, speak, campaign, but it doesn't really matter. Everyone that gets elected seem to think they have a "mandate" and do whatever they want until someone else gets elected and continues on in the same manner.

You see a direct attack on the Fourth Amendment, and the best you can come up with is, "ha ha, it was your side that did it, not mine." Do you listen to yourself or are everyone's civil rights just another baseball game to you?

That said, even if you encrypt the postcard, there's nothing to say that the guy the other end isn't forced to give a decrypted version to his local law enforcement or face jail-time anyway.

You make a valid point but I think the gist of this legislation is to allow legal, casual snooping without the hassle of obtaining a warrant. If this bill passes, there will be egregious abuses (cop snooping on ex-wife, etc) that will go unchallenged because, well, it was legal. The only excuse needed will be "I felt the safety of the person was at risk" or "We had reason to believe..."

Whole point is, this bill would make casual snooping and abuses very easy to get away with and the consequences non-existent and easy as pie to skirt-around.

Well, "the free" part is still true. It just doesn't refer to the people any more. It is the government that is free. Free to do whatever the hell they want with no oversight and nothing anyone can do about it. Because, you know, only child-molesters and terrorists want to be free, and you'd have to be one of those two groups to say anything about what the government does.

The United States has a cancer and is rotting from within. (Sad enough on its own, worse by the fact that they are not alone.)

I share your disappointment with the voting public, but I disagree on this point. It's obvious that the Patriot Act had been written long before 9-11-2001 and TPTB were just waiting for an excuse to implement it. That's solid proof of a "conspiracy".

Do you think that the Patriot Act would be re-authorized if it was put up for national referendum? How about the bill being discussed in the article? IMO, the people that "support" these measures do so passively, while the people that oppose them are passionate in their opposition. For that reason, I think the opposition would win.

Unfortunately, we're stuck with the false dichotomy of the 2 party system and most of the 'R's and 'D's agree that The People should have fewer civil liberties. This issue just isn't important enough for most people to compel them to vote for a 3rd party. That's tacit support for the policies, but it's not a matter of politicians bending to popular opinion.

And I'm sue that if King Henry VIII were to see this, he would be proud of Sen Leahy, the Democrats, and the Republicans for their heroic efforts to keep the serfs and other rabble that might oppose the Crown...err...US administration...in line and remind them that they only have the rights the government decides to allow any particular person at any given time.

But never mind all that boring stuff and men behind curtains pulling levers, did you hear about the latest juicy political sex scandal?? OMG!! And abortion!...gay marriage!...racism!...terrorism!...Evil rich!...pedophiles!...GEORGE BUSH!! Oh my!